Page 35 of Who We Think We Are
W hen Ingrid returns and Kate serves her tea, she asks, “Do you have anything stronger?”
“I do,” says Kate. “I bought a bottle of genever to take home to Jake. But I can get him another bottle.”
“What’s that?” asks Ingrid.
“It’s like a combination of gin and scotch, juniper and malt,” says Kate. “Like a bodybuilder, it is strong and doesn’t fool around. Want to try it?”
“Yes!” says Ingrid.
“OK.” Kate opens the bottle and pours about an ounce into three liqueur glasses. They each take one and raise it, and Kate says, “Proost!”
They drink.
“Oh my God!” says Ingrid as they all gasp. “I’ve got to have that around if I ever have a cold. It will clear everything out!”
“Want another?” asks Kate. They all have one more shot and then switch to tea.
“What do you want to talk about, Ingrid?” asks Kate. “I’ve got something to discuss with you, too.”
“I have a feeling they’re the same thing. I know you’ve had some trouble since you made an inquiry about Tante Bertrun’s records at the archives. I know the record was deleted, and you’ve had some scary things happen, but I don’t know much else. Would you be willing to tell me what happened?”
Kate tells her about the experiences she had in Berlin when she gave her passport, the near miss with the police at the Berlin airport, and the subtly threatening man on the train. Then Kate asks, “Is there someone who wouldn’t want Bertrun’s information known?”
Ingrid says, “Her son, Martin, is a federal judge in Germany. He would definitely not want her information made public.”
“What part in particular?” asks Mikelia.
“Any of it. All of it. That his grandfather was an SS doctor at Ravensbrück who was most likely guilty of war crimes and changed his identity and disappeared into German society or that his mother was a Lebensborn baby. These are things that still carry a lot of stigma. Are you aware of the trial of Oskar Groning that took place in Lüneburg this summer, the accountant of Auschwitz, as they’re calling him? ”
Mikelia says, “I watched coverage of the trial in the news all summer and told Kate about it.”
Ingrid starts pacing as she continues. “With the trial taking place right on her doorstep in Lüneburg, the media frenzy at the time Tante Bertrun found the footlocker made both her and Martin especially sensitive to their family secrets being exposed. For Martin, I would say, even paranoid. The German collective unconscious is complex when it comes to their Nazi past. There are extremes. Some are hostile to anything to do with Nazis, and others are defensive of Nazis. May I have another one of those shots?”
Kate gives her another shot glass of genever. Ingrid knocks it back.
“Here’s what I think happened. When Tante Bertrun told him that she wanted to pretend she’d never found the footlocker and its contents, and he said he’d get rid of it, he did.”
Ingrid sits down in one of the wingback chairs.
“But Martin took it a step further. He would never flag your passport or follow or threaten you, and he wouldn’t know how.
However, his security person, his goon, Holger Fischer, would do all that and more.
If Martin told Holger to take care of it, he would and wouldn’t tell Martin how. And Martin wouldn’t want to know.
“Well, I’m going to make sure Martin does know. I’m going to tell him to call off his goon and do the right thing.”
“You better tread very carefully, Ingrid. And please don’t do anything until I’m safely back in Canada and Mikelia is safely in Denmark.”
“Oh, I’m not afraid of my cousin. But I will wait until you’re both home. I’ve known him my whole life, and I’ve got information on him that he would not want to get out. He will not mess with me.”
“All the same, leave Mikelia and me out of it, and we need to stick with first names only. I want to find out the truth, but I don’t want to die trying. As it is, my husband and daughters have been screaming at me to get home right away.”
“So why haven’t you?” asks Ingrid.
“Because, as my daughter said to me, even if I’m afraid, I don’t back down from bullies.”
“And neither do I,” says Mikelia.
“Good!” Ingrid stands up, and they link arms. “Then we stand together.”
Kate and Mikelia meet Ingrid and Bertrun in the main breakfast room at eight the next morning.
They serve themselves coffee, tea, and breakfast from the buffet.
When they’re seated, Kate touches Bertrun’s arm.
“There’s something I forgot to tell you last night, Bertrun.
One time, when I was a little girl, I was going through Oma’s jewelry box with her, and she was letting me play with her jewelry.
Most of it was costume jewelry, but it was sparkly and shiny, and I felt like we were looking through a pirate’s treasure chest. Inside her jewelry box was a small box.
I asked her if I could open it, and she said yes, but I had to be careful because it was very precious.
I opened the box, and in it was a lock of fine red hair tied with a pink ribbon.
When I asked whose hair it was, she told me it was the hair of an angel and that she had spent a few days with an angel one time. ”
“She named me Anneke, little angel.”
“She never forgot you, Bertrun.”
“But why did she give me up for adoption?” asks Bertrun in a quiet voice, looking down at her hands.
“Because you weren’t hers.” Kate softens her voice and places her hand on Bertrun’s.
“She didn’t accidentally get pregnant from being with a boy and get rid of the baby.
She was a member of the Hitler Youth and was recruited to have a baby for the Lebensborn program because of her Aryan features.
She had just turned sixteen, and without telling her mother, she left home and had sex with an SS man whose name she didn’t know.
Her mother kicked her out of the house for lying about being in the Hitler Youth.
When it was confirmed that she was pregnant, and she couldn’t lie about it anymore, she moved to the Lebensborn home.
“When you were born, and you had red hair, she was worried that the Nazis would kill you for not being Aryan enough. But three days after you were born, your adoptive parents picked you up. She saw them walk out to their car with you, your father, tall and blond in his SS uniform, and your mother, with light-red hair, carrying you in her arms. It broke her heart, but you belonged to the German Reich, not to her, and she was relieved that you had a home and wouldn’t be an orphan or be killed.
Then she went home and tried to resume the life of a sixteen-year-old girl. ”
“Like it never happened,” said Ingrid.
“Except here I am,” said Bertrun, pulling her shoulders back and sitting up straight.
“As I said, finding out my father was in the SS and that I was adopted and was a Lebensborn baby has been difficult for me to come to terms with. One hears stories about Lebensborn babies who have been stigmatized and traumatized their entire lives. My parents protected me from that. They loved me, never treated me any differently than my brother or sister, and were good people. My father was the stereotypical dorfarzt, a village doctor; he cared about people, knew his patients by name, and went on house calls any time of the day or night. I simply can’t reconcile that with him being an SS doctor at Ravensbrück.
My brain can’t do it. And neither can my heart.
” Bertrun’s eyes fill with tears, and Kate hands her a tissue.
“That’s why I didn’t want to find out anything more when I found those papers.
It wasn’t like I thought, ‘Oh, now everything makes sense. I always thought my father was a monster, and now I have proof.’ No, it was the complete opposite.
Nothing made sense anymore. That’s why I asked my son to get rid of that footlocker and everything in it. ”
“What did he say when you asked him to get rid of it, Tante Bertrun?” asks Ingrid.
“He said he would take care of it. He’s so good to me. In fact, I was so excited about meeting you yesterday, Kate, and all that we shared, I called Martin to tell him all about it before I went to bed.”